You will be interested to know that we have been to Ferney and seen the house in which Voltaire resided, it being but a small distance from the centre of the city. The château is not imposing, but very handsome. It is scrupulously maintained by the Genevans exactly as when the great man himself occupied it. Voltaire had a very eclectic taste, and there are likenesses of those men he particularly admired adorning the walls, in a profusion and variety which would astonish you: Milton (despite Rousseau’s very severe comments upon the Paradise Lost), Newton, Corneille, Helvetius, &c., and Washington and Franklin! I cannot account for the absence of Paine and Lafayette in such a pantheon. In addition to the house, the gardens are quite large, and are open to the citizens of Geneva. This prospect from the eminence on which the château stands not only commands a view of Geneva, but the Jura Alps, Lake Geneva (which is here called by the French and Swiss Lac Léman), and Mont Blanc, and so is quite popular with both citizens and travellers. There is a large theatre, seating upwards of 700, in this place where his plays were performed. I do not recollect any place in England where we have preserved such a scene in honour of a man of letters, much to our own discredit.

To-morrow, we are to visit some places where watches and music-boxes are made, and the following day, we have been very obligingly invited to the home of an English gentleman for dinner, he suspecting, I suppose, that we have not had our share of tough mutton and boiled beef since leaving England. We are all in hopes of fish.

Assuming we survive the rigours of sight-seeing and eating far more than is good for us, we plan to visit Byron’s Villa Diodati, as well as the château of the pitiable Empress Josephine, Prégny-la-Tour. Mr. Darcy and I have contrived to surprise Georgiana with a visit to Coppet, an act for which we shall receive too much of gratitude for the sake of our own pleasure.

My husband has been busy collecting some very large books for the library at Pemberley; may they be as interesting as they are heavy. The scenery is sublime, and I would be well content to remain here, excepting for the love I bear you and Jane, and the rest of my dear family, and the distaste I have for giving myself such trouble as to become tolerably proficient in the French language. Your esteemed selves and my beloved Pemberley require me to learn nothing, a study already mastered with considerably less inconvenience to myself.

Please give our love to Kitty and Parson Overstowey, and assure the former that we eat nothing excepting a few leaves and a very little thin broth, and that only every other week.

Your loving daughter,

ELIZABETH DARCY